Hand-held nail guns are well known in the art. They are usually pneumatically operated and are sufficiently light to be portable around a construction site where nailing is required. Such nail guns are primarily a holder for a series of nails and a pneumatic cylinder to drive the first of the nails. A trigger controls the pneumatic cylinder. In order to prevent discharge of a nail when it is not pressed against a surface, a safety slide on the front of the gun must be actuated for gun operation. The great flexibility of such guns permits them to be used in a wide variety of construction situations where such nailing is required.
While such nail guns are suitable for the attachment of roof sheathing to roof rafters, due to the fact that the surface is relatively large and many nails must be driven, specialized nailers have been created. These specialized roof-sheathing nailers have support wheels so that the nailer can be driven over the roof deck. The wheels measure the distance traversed and actuate the machine to drive nails at selected intervals. Such machines are heavy and are not suitable for other purposes.